(a) The Mishnah later permits cutting the corn in a Sadeh Beis ha'Shalachin
that lies in a valley (and that requires constant watering manually) -
provided one does not build a haystack with the cut corn (see Tosfos DH
'Aval').

(b) The Chachamim permit this - either because, , if one leaves the crops
too long in the field, due to their dryness, they will wither, or more
likely because, due to the inferior quality of the crops, they cannot be
brought for the Omer (and we will learn later, that any particular location
whose crops are not eligible to be used for the Omer, may be harvested
before the Omer.

(c) This poses a Kashya on Rabah - inasmuch as the Mishnah permits cutting a
Sadeh Beis ha'Shalachin in a valley, even using a scythe, and Rebbi Yehudah
does not seem to object. Why is he not concerned that one might come to eat
Chadash before the Omer has been brought (like he is by Chametz)?

(d) Abaye therefore attributes Rebbi Yehudah's stringent ruling by Chametz
to the fact - that one eats Chametz all the year round, which is why he is
afraid that if one searches for it on Pesach, one might forget and come to
eat what one finds. Chadash, on the other hand, has been forbidden until
now, and one is unlikely to forget and eat it, after cutting it.

2)

(a) Rava asks why Abaye only resolves the discrepancy in Rebbi Yehudah, and
not in the Rabbanan - who permit searching for Chametz on Pesach (unconcerne
d that one might eat the Chametz that one finds), yet (in the form of Rebbi
Meir) they are concerned that one might eat the Chadash before the Omer has
been brought?

(b) He resolves it - with the S'vara that Chametz is different, in that a
person who is searching for Chametz in order to burn it, is unlikely to eat
it.

(c) Rav Ashi tries to resolve the discrepancy in Rebbi Yehudah by confining
his lenient opinion in our Mishnah to flour made from roasted kernels -
which is inedible in its current form.

(d) We consider Rav Ashi's answer a joke however - because it ignores the
fact that one might eat them prior to that stage whilst they are still in
grain form, and all nice and tasty.

(e) Nor will it even help to confine our Mishnah to where one cuts the corn
with one's hands, as we learned earlier (as a reminder that it is Chadash) -
because the Mishnah 'Kotzrin es ha'Shalachin ... ' remains difficult, as we
asked there.

3)

(a) Our Mishnah discusses the duration of Isur Chadash. The Tana permits
it - from the moment the Omer has been brought.

(b) Those who live far from Yerushalayim (who have no way of knowing when
the that occurs) - may eat Chadash from midday of the sixteenth ...

(c) ... because they can be sure that the Yerushalayim Beis-Din will have
brought the Omer by then.

4)

(a) 'Yom Henef' is - a name given to the sixteenth of Nisan (the day the
Omer is waved).

(b) After the destruction of the Beis-Hamikdash, Raban Yochanan ben Zakai
instituted - that the Isur Chadash should extend to the entire day of 'Yom
Henef'.

(c) Rebbi Yehudah objects to the Tana Kama's (previous) statement - on the
grounds that it is forbidden min ha'Torah (and not just a decree of Raban
Yochanan ben Zakai), since, based on the principle 'ad ve'ad bi'Chelal' (the
word "ad" is always inclusive) "ad Etzem ha'Yom ha'Zeh" (the Pasuk
forbidding Chadash) means until the end of the day on which the Omer is
brought.

5)

(a) When Rav and Shmuel rule that when there is no Beis-Hamikdash, sunrise
permits the Isur Chadash - they are coming to preclude the whole night,
during which Chadash remains Asur.

(b) They derive this ruling from the Pesukim - "ad Havi'achem es Omer
ha'Tenufah" and "ad Etzem ha'Yom ha'Zeh", which (based on the principle 'ad
ve'Lo ad bi'Chelal' [the word "ad" is always exclusive]) they interpret to
mean until the beginning of the day on which the Omer is brought).

(c) Rebbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish are even more lenient than Rav and
Shmuel. According to them - Chadash becomes permitted at sunrise of the
sixteenth, even when the Beis-Hamikdash is standing.

(d) Rebbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish will explain ...

1. ... the Pasuk "ad Havi'achem" - as a Mitzvah Lechatchilah (rather than as
an absolute Isur) ...
2. ... and that is how they will explain our Mishnah 'mi'she'Karav ha'Omer,
Hutar Chadash Miyad' (implying but not before) ...
3. ... and the following Mishnah 'ha'Omer Hayah Matir ba'Medinah, u'Shetei
ha'Lechem ba'Mikdash' (all Lechatchilah).

(a) After the Churban Beis-Hamikdash, Raban Yochanan ben Zakai forbade
Chadash until the seventeenth of Nisan - for fear that, once the
Beis-Hamikdash was rebuilt, people would begin to eat Chadash in the morning
of the sixteenth, on the basis of their having done so in previous years
(without realizing that this was because there was no Beis-Hamikdash, but
now there was, they had to wait for the Omer).

(b) This poses a Kashya on Rebbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish - because if in
the time of the Beis-Hamikdash, eating Chadash in the morning of the
sixteenth had only been Lechatchilah, Raban Yochanan ben Zakai would never
have issued such a decree.

(b) They did not even wait until morning - because they also maintained that
the Rabbanan did not include this Takanah in the S'feika de'Yoma of the
second day Yom-Tov.

(c) The Rabbanan of Rav Ashi held that Chadash be'Chutz la'Aretz is Asur
mi'd'Oraysa, and they only ate Chadash in the morning of the seventeenth.
Nevertheless, they did not wait until nightfall - because even if it was
really the sixteenth, Chadash would have been permitted already in the
morning, and they maintained that it was enough to forbid the entire Yom
Henef itself, but not the whole S'feika de'Yoma.

(d) Ravina's nurse told him that his father used to wait until nightfall
after the seventeenth, before eating Chadash - because he held that the
whole Yom Henef is Asur d'Oraysa (like Rebbi Yehudah), Chadash Chutz
la'Aretz is Asur mi'd'Oraysa, and that they decreed on the entire S'feika
de'Yoma.

9)

(a) Our Mishnah now discusses the respective functions of the Omer - which
permits Chadash in the Medinah (outside the Beis-Hamikdash) and the Sh'tei
ha'Lechem, in the Beis-Hamikdash.

(b) Menachos, Bikurim and the Minchas Nesachim that are brought from the new
crops before the Omer, are Pasul - whereas although bringing them before the
Sh'tei ha'Lechem is forbidden Lechatchilah, Bedi'eved, the Korban is valid.

(c) Rebbi Yehudah ben Nechemyah explained to Rebbi Tarfon - that before the
Sh'tei ha'Lechem is more lenient than before the Omer in this regard,
because Chadash already became permitted to a Hedyot (after the Omer).

(d) To merit the punishment that Rebbi Akiva predicted he would receive
(i.e. to die not long afterwards), Rebbi Yehudah ben Nechemyah - gloated
over having enlightened Rebbi Tarfon.

(e) According to the testimonial of Rebbi Yehudah - when he (Rebbi Yehudah)
arrived in Yerushalayim within two weeks of Pesach, Rebbi Yehudah bar
Nechemyah was still alive, but when he returned on Shavu'os, they informed
him that he had died.

10)

(a) Nesachim are not included in the Isur of Chadash - because Chadash is
confined to the five kinds of grain.

(b) Nevertheless, Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak found it necessary to state that
according to Rebbi Yehudah bar Nechemyah (who permits Menachos before the
Sh'tei ha'Lechem), if Niskei Bikurim are brought before the Omer, they are
Kasher - because, unlike Menachos before the Sh'tei ha'Lechem, they lack the
advantage of the Omer having already permitted Chadash for a Hedyot, which
is Rebbi Yehudah bar Nechemyah's criterion.

(c) In fact, Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak is coming to teach us - that if
Menachos are permitted before the Sh'tei ha'Lechem, how much more so Niskei
Nesachim, which was never forbidden to begin with.

11)

(a) Rami bar Chama asks whether the Sh'tei ha'Lechem will permit Chadash in
the Beis-Hamikdash 'she'Lo ke'Sidran' - by which he means to ask whether
crops that were planted between the Omer and the Sh'tei ha'Lechem, and which
are therefore not yet permitted to a Hedyot, will nevertheless be permitted
to be brought in the Beis-Hamikdash by the Sh'tei ha'Lechem.

(b) Rabah cites a Beraisa, which discusses the Pasuk "ve'Im Takriv Minchas
Bikurim", which the Tana defines as - the Minchas ha'Omer.

(a) Rebbi Akiva learns the same Halachah from the fact that both a Yachid
and the Tzibur bring their Chovah sometimes from wheat and sometimes from
barley. The Chovah that a Yachid brings from ...

1. ... wheat is - the Minchas Chotei (the Korban Oleh ve'Yored).
2. ... barley is - the Minchas Kena'os of a Sotah.

(b) And he goes on to prove from there - that the Minchas ha'Omer must
consist of barley, because otherwise, which Korban Tzibur of a Yachid does?

13)

(a) Alternatively, what Rebbi Akiva said was that if the Korban Omer
consists of wheat, then the Sh'tei ha'Lechem would not be considered
"Bikurim" - which implies 'the first fruits to ripen' (and the Sh'tei
ha'Lechem will always be preceded by the Omer [which ripened first]).

(b) This appears to resolve Rami bar Chama's She'eilah, because if the
Sh'tei ha'Lechem were to permit Chadash to the Beis-Hamikdash she'Lo
ke'Sidran, the Sh'tei ha'Lechem could still be called "Bikurim" - in a case
where the Omer was brought from wheat that ripened in the previous Iyar, and
the Sh'tei ha'Lechem from wheat that ripened two months later, in Tamuz. In
that case, the wheat of Iyar becomes permitted to a Hedyot via the Sh'tei
ha'Lechem (she'Lo ke'Sidran) of the same year, yet when, in the following
year, they bring the first wheat of last year's Tamuz crops as the Sh'tei
ha'Lechem, it is Bikurim and permits that entire crop to be brought on the
Mizbe'ach.

(c) Rami bar Chama refutes the proof by explaining 'Bikurim' differently. He
explains - that when the Torah refers to the Sh'tei ha'Lechem as 'Bikurim',
it is referring (not to the first of its own wheat-harvest, but) - to the
first of that year's wheat harvest to go on the Mizbe'ach. Consequently, in
which case one cannot prove from Rebbi Akiva's words, that she'Lo ke'Sidran,
does not permit the wheat harvest to be brought on the Mizbe'ach.